CBS4 Exclusive: Photos Reveal What May Have Caused Electrified Pool

HIALEAH (CBSMiami) – Pictures released by crime scene investigators show not one, but a multitude of electrical and code issues at the Palms West Apartments—it’s enough to wonder why an accident had not happened sooner.

“I’m not going to that pool again,” said Diego Cabrera last week.

Frankly, he’s lucky to be alive.

Cabrera, along with two other children, where pulled out of the Palms West pool when the pool became electrically charged.

Kids became paralyzed by the shock and family members had to pull them to safety.

The pool remains closed and the homeowners association is shaken up over the incident. They told CBS4 Tuesday that they, as much as anyone else, want to know what happened.

Now, they may have their answer.

Hialeah’s chief electrical inspector wrote about it in his report saying the, “deficient wiring to the pool pumps” was likely to blame.

A photo shows a ground wire on the pool’s pump leading to nowhere.

Based on these photos and preliminary reports there seems to be a good explanation of what went wrong when the three kids were shocked.

Electricity flowed into a circuit breaker box just like it would in your home. From there, it went to the pool pump. But on the day the kids were shocked it may have malfunctioned—or perhaps simply burned out.

Typically, when that happens, the circuit breaker cuts off the power to the pump. In this case though it appears the breaker may have reacted too late.

A backup safety wire, called a ground wire, should have carried the excess power into the earth but the wire was hanging in the air going nowhere. So power continued to flow to the pool pump, looking for a place to go. It found a place in the pump’s water—possibly creating an electrified pool.

Thankfully the charge that was coming into the pool that day wasn’t all that powerful.